Crush Liberalism

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Biden starts (and destroys) campaign in one day!

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) officially kicked off his campaign today. However, it looks like he may have ended it today, too. From the New York Observer:

Senator Joseph Biden doesn’t think highly of the Iraq policies of some of the other Democrats who are running for President.

To hear him tell it, Hillary Clinton’s position is calibrated, confusing and “a very bad idea.” John Edwards doesn’t know what he’s talking about and is pushing a recipe for Armageddon in the Middle East. Barack Obama is offering charming but insubstantial fluff. And all of them are playing politics....Mr. Biden is equally skeptical—albeit in a slightly more backhanded way—about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

The...what?? The "first" mainstream black guy who's smart and articulate and clean? Holy shizit, does anyone have any freakin' doubts as to how the MSM would have ravaged the plagiarist from Delaware had he been a Republican?

This story is in the New York Observer. As of this morning (and of course, that could change later on), most other MSM outlets are quieter than Monica Lewinsky in her presidential kneepads under the Oval Office desk. Were Biden a Republican, he'd already be "fried, died, and laid to the side", would he not? However, we can look at the MSM's failure to immediately report on this as further evidence of their leftist bias.

Toilets in one London prison are getting a face-lift — or rather, a change in direction — to accommodate Muslim inmates who can't use them while facing Mecca, a British newspaper reported.

Government officials ackowledged using tax dollars for the changes to the facilities, but maintained that moving the toilets was part of "on-going refurbishment," according to an article in The Sun.

Islamic code prohibits Muslims from facing or turning their backs on the direction of prayer when they use the bathroom. Muslim prisoners complained of having to sit sideways on toilets so as to not break code.

Faith leaders in the government pressured officials to approve turning the toilets 90 degrees at HMP Brixton in London.

A Muslim American rights worker commended the London prison system for their actions, but said the problem, so far, doesn't appear to be an issue in the U.S.

"There have been very significant and numerous complaints at U.S. prisons on issues of regulating hygiene and respect for dietary laws," said Ibrahim Ramey, director of human and civil rights work for Muslim America Society. However, Ramey said he was unaware of any specific complaints regarding the direction of toilets in U.S. prisons.

Just so I'm understanding this correctly:

You can blow up a busload of Jews, self-detonate in an Israeli café, decapitate a few infidels, and Allah is pleased. But if you sh#t facing the wrong way, you're frying in Hell? Ooooooooooooo-kay then.

What if you need to go to the bathroom on an airplane? Should the pilot change course in mid-air to accommodate your defication needs? Or do you hold your dung (and decapitate the insensitive infidel later)?

Here in America, we see things every day to indicate that we're becoming a nation of p#ssies. However, even we don't do anything as stupid as rearranging toilet directions in prisons just to make Muslims happy.

Hey, I've got a brilliant idea! If you're a Muslim in America, and you're afraid that you'll wind up in prison and jeopardize your soul's final destination because you might "drop a line to headquarters" while facing the wrong way...how about, oh I dunno, not winding up in prison in the first place? You know, "obeying the law" and that kind of crazy shizit?

"Harry Reid, land shark?"

How's that "culture of corruption" thingy workin' for ya, Harry? From the Chicago Tribune:

If Harry Reid hadn't succeeded in politics, he could have done well in real estate. Actually, the Senate Democratic leader, who hails from Nevada, has managed both.

In 2001, he made $1.1 million on a Las Vegas transaction that got him some unwanted attention from the Senate ethics committee because he failed to report some crucial information on his financial disclosure forms. Now, we learn that he bought out a business partner in another land deal at a price that looks too good to be true and that he has sponsored legislation that would benefit that former partner.

An investigation by the Los Angeles Times found that in 2002, Reid paid $10,000 to a pension fund--controlled by an old friend, Clair Haycock--which owned a 37.5 percent share of a 160-acre parcel in Bullhead City, Ariz. That is one-ninth what Haycock paid when he and Reid bought the land 25 years ago. On a per-acre basis, it's also about one-fiftieth what it fetched in 1990 from buyers who later defaulted. The county assessor says it sounds like a "super deal" for Reid.

But the Times story raises the possibility that Haycock was getting more from his friend than $10,000. A few months later, the senator introduced a bill to prevent oil companies from suddenly canceling contracts with lubricants dealers--of which Haycock is one. The lawyer who represented Haycock in a dispute with Mobil Oil says, "The Haycocks provided access to Sen. Reid." In the end, the proposal went nowhere.

A Reid representative says the deal was perfectly legitimate and that any claimed connection to the oil measure is clearly mistaken, because Reid originally introduced the bill in 1994. He says one reason the agreed price was so low was that Reid didn't want to buy out Haycock during a slump in the local real estate market, and that he agree to do so only after his partner couldn't find another purchaser. For that matter, Reid was so unhappy with the investment that he tried in vain to give the land to a local developer.

But if Reid was dissatisfied with the land and eager to be rid of it, he might have opted for the easy solution: Put the entire parcel up for sale and split the proceeds. That would have let the pension fund liquidate its asset at the market price and let Reid do the same. His spokesman says that could have taken too long for Haycock, but it's hard to believe there would not have been ready takers for a property that he and Reid were ready to practically give away.

It's unlikely that Reid introduced the distributor bill as a quid pro quo. But there is still something unseemly when a member of Congress sponsors legislation intended to help out someone with whom he has an ongoing friendship and a business relationship--a lucrative one, in this case.

One of the burdens of power is intense scrutiny, as former House Speaker Dennis Hastert discovered. Last year, the Tribune revealed that he made more than $1.5 million on an investment in land near a major highway project that Hastert had championed.

As the new Senate Democratic leader, Reid can expect closer attention than ever to his financial dealings. (From the MSM? Yeah, right! - Ed.)

Two powerful new books say today’s global warming is due not to human activity but primarily to a long, moderate solar-linked cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years, by physicist Fred Singer and economist Dennis Avery was released just before Christmas. The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change, by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark and former BBC science writer Nigel Calder (Icon Books), is due out in March.

Singer and Avery note that most of the earth’s recent warming occurred before 1940, and thus before much human-emitted CO2. Moreover, physical evidence shows 600 moderate warmings in the earth’s last million years. The evidence ranges from ancient Nile flood records, Chinese court documents and Roman wine grapes to modern spectral analysis of polar ice cores, deep seabed sediments, and layered cave stalagmites.

Unstoppable Global Warming shows the earth’s temperatures following variations in solar intensity through centuries of sunspot records, and finds cycles of sun-linked isotopes in ice and tree rings. The book cites the work of Svensmark, who says cosmic rays vary the earth’s temperatures by creating more or fewer of the low, wet clouds that cool the earth. It notes that global climate models can’t accurately register cloud effects.

The Chilling Stars relates how Svensmark’s team mimicked the chemistry of earth’s atmosphere, by putting realistic mixtures of atmospheric gases into a large reaction chamber, with ultraviolet light as a stand-in for the sun. When they turned on the UV, microscopic droplets—cloud seeds—started floating through the chamber.

“We were amazed by the speed and efficiency with which the electrons [generated by cosmic rays] do their work of creating the building blocks for the cloud condensation nuclei,” says Svensmark.

The Chilling Stars documents how cosmic rays amplify small changes in the sun’s irradiance fourfold, creating 1-2 degree C cycles in earth’s temperatures: Cosmic rays continually slam into the earth’s atmosphere from outer space, creating ion clusters that become seeds for small droplets of water and sulfuric acid. The droplets then form the low, wet clouds that reflect solar energy back into space. When the sun is more active, it shields the earth from some of the rays, clouds wane, and the planet warms.

Unstoppable Global Warming documents the reality of a moderate, natural, 1500-year climate cycle on the earth. The Chilling Stars explains the why and how.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

"Iraq vs. Darfur - Just What Is a Worthy Call to One's Conscience?"

An excellent post by the Federalist Society UofW Chapter regarding the left's hypocrisy on Darfur:

These pictures, taken at the University Temple United Methodist Church across the street from the UW law school, illustrate perfectly the moral bankruptcy, hypocrisy, and vapidity of the left's foreign policy worldview:

Around the country this weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in favor of the killing of countless Iraqis - the certain outcome if we were to retreat redeploy from that country. Whatever their signs may have said, it was clear what they wanted. They marched in favor of American defeat, in favor of the anti-democratic forces in Iraq, in favor of Fascist Iran's geopolitical goals. They literally spat at an OIF veteran who dared to disagree with them. Why? Because Bush lied about WMDs, because our presence there only creates more terrorists, and because we're only there for the oil anyway. (That none of these claims are in any way supported by facts have no impact, remember.) They claim to be anti-war, but the truth is that they don't care about war unless the US has something to do with it. Or at least, they care far less about mass killings than about being anti-Bush. A call to one's conscience indeed.

Why are the Christians in Darfur more worthy of being saved than the Kurds or Shi'ites were under Saddam's Iraq? Why is the sectarian violence (some could say civil war) in the Sudan worthy of sending American troops to battle al Qaeda, IEDs, and an "endless war" in a country without any real government, when at the same time, it is a moral imperative that we guarantee the same deadly results in Iraq by withdrawing immediately?...Why is it that being a super power means we can only use force when it's NOT related to our national interests? Even if the absurd conspiratorial accusations against Bush lying and terrorizing his way into Iraq were true, how do people who think it is worth American lives to prevent mass sectarian violence not demand we stay there?

There are no answers to these questions, of course. Darfur is hip, Iraq is not. That's it. That's the real difference. And Darfur has the added bonus of "never going to happen" because of French, Chinese, and Russian interests there. Which means the high school idealists, college-know-it-all hippies, academics, and other assorted activists can feel good about "making a difference" without ever having to face the consequences which come with the best intentioned humanitarian interventions.

Read the whole thing. It's not long, and it's certainly worth it to get a peep inside the empty gourds of leftists who brainlessly chant "No blood for oil!"

Democrats and class envy: it's all they have

When you're a functional economic illiterate like most liberals, it's easy to get sucked into class envy (especially if you're a non-producer of society). I am not a wealthy man, but I do not begrudge those who are. Hell, I'd like to be one someday. However, were my life to end without the accumulation of millions of dollars, I would have no doubts that I was a success in life nonetheless.

However, according to the left, I should despise those who get rich. I should be resentful. I should violate one of the seven deadly sins by possessing envy. Pardon me, but I think I'll pass on that. Star Parker has more:

In a Newsweek column titled "How Dems Can Win White House," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., opines about the difficulties that the Democratic Party has had in defining itself.

The senator wonders, enviously, how Republicans have been able to "identify issues that connected to their deeply held values," reduce them to a few words - eight according to Schumer - and communicate to the American people.

"What are our eight words?" the senator asks.

But Democrats have a very clear picture of who they are. And newly elected Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who his party picked to give their response to the president's State of the Union address, knows his party's message and communicated it clear as a bell.

Aside from the senator's criticisms about the war in Iraq, the entire substance of his thoughts about what is going on in our country was about differences in earnings. Specifically, about the differences in earnings between CEOs and the "average worker." "When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times."

So, Schumer, listen to your newly elected colleague. He has succinctly summed up what your party is about. I call it the politics of envy.

Wealth, of course, is produced by individuals going to work. Not by politicians getting them ticked off that their neighbor is making more than they are.

But the latter is what the Democratic Party is about.

Webb's remarks were an extension of a column he wrote in The Wall Street Journal shortly after he was elected in November. In that column, he talked about our country drifting "toward a class based system." And then, of course, contrasted minimum wage earners with the "average CEO of a sizeable corporation" who "makes more than $10 million dollars a year. . . ."

But do large CEO earnings say that we're now a class based society? Where do these guys come from?

How about the legendary and recently retired CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch. His father was a train conductor. I think a survey of America's CEOs would show that most of these men, and women, come from middle class working families and got where they are through hard work. (It is a myth that most rich people inherited their money. The vast, overwhelming majority of wealthy people earned their riches through (cover your eyes, my liberal readers) WORK! - Ed.)

How about Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch? O'Neal pulled in a whopping $48 million last year. Somehow, in Webb's "class based" society, this black man managed to become CEO of this Wall Street monolith.

Here's something about O'Neal's background from a profile in Fortune Magazine: "Raised on a farm in rural Alabama during segregation, he was educated in a schoolhouse built by his grandfather (a man who was born into slavery and whom O'Neal recalls with deep emotion)."

Regarding Webb's claims that most Americans are not participating in our thriving economy, the same Bloomberg news article reporting that Stanley O'Neal's $48 million payday was up 30 percent from the previous year, reported that the "five largest Wall Street firms paid their employees a total of more than $60 billion last year, up more than 32 percent from 2005. . . ."

All evidence I see is that Wall Street, a barometer of the nation's health, is booming, that the black grandson of a former slave is running one its largest firms, and that all the employees of the firms there are sharing equally in the boom.

But this message doesn't sit well when playing to envy, that base human emotion, forbidden by the Tenth Commandment, is your strategy for grabbing onto political power.

And why is Webb obsessed with $10 million CEOs, who actually are producing something (Stan O'Neal is in charge of a firm with 50,000 employees that produces $50 billion in revenue)? Why isn't he concerned about the 42 NBA players who earn more than $10 million? How about the top ten movie stars, all of whom earn well more than $10 million?

Where, of course, the Democrats' politics of envy mindset also takes us is to wonder about how the rest of the world might look at all Americans. The World Bank defines poverty as earning $1 a day. That means that a minimum wage earner in the United States earns 40 times as much as the world's poorest people.

How many people on this planet earn $1 a day? About 320 million. More than the whole population of the United States.

What we need, in this country, and around the world, is freedom and hard work. Not envy.

The problem of the party of Webb and Schumer is not communicating their message. It's having the wrong one.

Slate's liberal: "How is Hagel courageous again?"

Why, exactly, is Sen. Chuck Hagel showing "courage" in conspicuously denouncing the Iraq War now that virtually the entire American establishment has reached that same conclusion--now that Hagel is virtually assured of getting hero treatment from Brian Williams and Tim Russert and long favorable profiles in the newsweeklies?

OK, maybe Hagel's not so courageous. Maybe he's just right. Except that he chose, as the moment to make his flamboyant speech, not the vote on the imprudent war itself--he voted for it--but a vote to withdraw support for a last-ditch surge strategy that even the NYT's estimable, on-the-scene pessimist Sabrina Tavernese thinks "may have a chance to work." Was this the right time--it certainly wasn't the courageous time--for a speech like Hagel's? Was he serving the nation or himself?

Saying "the war was wrong but the surge is worth a try"--that would be courageous. There's no ready-made constituency eager to cheer a pol who says that.

Bucking your party to actively fight against the war when it would have made a difference--that would have been courageous.**

Hagel hasn't done either of those things. Instead, he let loose at the precise moment when letting loose was least brave and least timely. Lest the MSM miss the point, his eruption took the form, not of arguing that his Republican colleagues were wrong, but of denouncing them for, in effect, being cowards, unlike you-know-who:

Never mind that the anti-surge resolution Hagel has cosponsored is all about hiding. It has no binding effect. But it does provide Senators who supported the war a convenient bit of late-inning skepticism they can point to when trying to save their skins.

Hagel also deployed the hoary I've-been-in combat-so-I-know-these-are-real-men-and-women-"fighting and dying" pitch--as if his fellow senators didn't realize they were real men and women. The I've-Been-There meme is to Hagel (and John Kerry) what the "mommy" meme is to Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer--a guilt-tripping, self-glorifying unique selling proposition that attempts to confer on the speaker a special capacity for insight that renders actual persuasive argument unnecessary.

And gee, after getting huge MSM play for lecturing the Senate on how courageous he is, and how he has special understanding as a combat veteran, Hagel is considering a run for the White House! Funny how that happens.

But hey, as long as the MSM gets to talk to a "Republican" who pays lip service to being anti-war, they're giddier than Ted Kennedy at a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery.

Night & Day

Today's N&D courtesy of Neal Boortz:

For example, from 2003: "I ended up voting for the resolution after carefully reviewing the information, intelligence that I had available, talking with people whose opinions I trusted, tried to discount the political or other factors that I didn't believe should be in any way a part of this decision." Oh really? You carefully reviewed the information? Carefully reviewed the intelligence? So you didn't make your decision lightly, Senator Clinton?

Well, sometime in the last four years she must've fallen and bumped her head.

Now in 2007, things sure have changed mightily: "So he took the authority that I and others gave him and he misused it, and I regret that deeply. And if we had known then what we know now, there never would have been a vote and I never would have voted to give this president that authority." But wait, Ms. Rodham! We thought you carefully reviewed the information? That means you didn't just take Bush's word for everything. So ... wasn't your fact-finding exercise every bit as faulty as was the president's?

During her first visit as a presidential candidate to early-caucus state Iowa, Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke out strongly in favor of boosting the production of ethanol in the United States.

But that’s a complete turnaround from her earlier actions regarding the alternative fuel, which is made from corn – and could provide a big boost to the economy of agricultural Iowa.

At a town hall meeting in Des Moines, the state capital, on January 27, Clinton said: "I believe we’ve got to take a strong stand on limiting our dependence on foreign oil. And we have a perfect example here in Iowa about how it can work with all of the ethanol that’s being produced here.”

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune cited in a release from the Republican National Committee, Clinton "took questions and spoke of boosting production of ethanol.”

And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Clinton "genuflected before ethanol, which is big business in Iowa.”

But as a Senator from New York, Clinton has voted at least 17 times against measures promoting ethanol production, the RNC noted.

During a question-and-answer session in 2004, Clinton was asked about "her outspoken opposition to legislation that would double the use of ethanol as a gasoline additive,” the Des Moines Register reported at the time.

"She was momentarily stumped by a question as to why she opposed the ethanol mandate, but then said she was concerned that it would raise gasoline prices for her constituents.”

Clinton reportedly said: "I have to look to first protecting and supporting the needs of the people I represent right now.”

In 2002, Clinton even signed a letter that read in part: "There is no sound public policy reason for mandating the use of ethanol.”

It’s not surprising that Clinton would have a change of heart regarding ethanol when addressing Iowa voters, considering that the ethanol industry generates $2.49 billion in total sales back to local communities, according to the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Satire alert

The brilliant satirical minds at The Nose On Your Face have an excellent piece that spoofs that stupid female Cali legislator who proposed the bill to ban spanking kids (though she has no kids herself):

In an effort to fend off criticism that her childless status makes her a questionable proponent of anti-spanking legislation, California legislator and cat-lover Sally Lieber is now offering some helpful child-rearing tips for parents.

Guest Commentary By Sally Lieber

I have been both surprised and disappointed since I introduced legislation in California that would make it illegal for parents to spank their young children. Just because I don't have any human kids doesn't mean that I don't understand how to raise them.

Here are a few dynamite tips that I've picked up along the way that are sure to help out even the most over-stressed parent. Enjoy.

1) When your child does not listen to you, it is never okay to spank them. A light misting from a spray bottle usually does the trick with much less damage to their self-esteem.

2) Make sure to have your child spayed or neutered by the time they enter daycare. Remember, responsible parents do not let their youngsters litter or have litters (Get it? Litter? Litters? My son Mr. Mittens came up with that. Isn't he clever?)

3) It is not necessary to buy your child expensive toys or elaborate video game systems. In my experience I've found that they are quite content with a simple ball of yarn.

4) When deciding where to place your child's bed, be sure to choose a spot that receives lots of sunlight.

5) Do not be alarmed if your child brings home a dead mouse or bird for you. Although children do not have the appropriate words to express their feelings at a young age, what they are really saying is "Hey- mom and dad? I truly love and appreciate you." Remember, as is often the case with children, it is the thought that counts.

6) Although it has been dismissed by many as an old wives tale, it is in fact true that children always do land on their feet when dropped from high places. Give it a try, it won't hurt them. In fact, it will help to hone their reflexes and muscles for later in life.

7) Reading is essential to the mental, emotional, and spiritual growth of children. Expose them to the classics such as Garfield and Puss 'n' Boots, at an early age.

8) Contrary to popular belief, a black child crossing your path is most emphatically not bad luck. This is one of those slow-to-die racial stereotypes that began with southern plantation owners centuries ago, and is perpetuated by Republicans and Michael Richards to this day.

Now get back out there and raise some terrific kids everybody!

Go check out (and bookmark) TNOYF. If you don't, you'll piss off Islamic Rage Boy. Trust me, you do NOT want to do that!

Joshua Sparling spit at by "peace" protestors

In Washington, counterprotesters also converged on the mall in smaller numbers, but the antiwar demonstration was largely peaceful. There were a few tense moments, however, including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq.

Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.

Capitol police made the antiwar protestors walk farther away from the counterprotesters.

“These are not Americans as far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Sparling said.

But hey...they "support the troops", right?

Oh, and though the NY Times is bending over backwards to portray the "peace" protestors as a bunch of law-abiding First Amendment types, there's a bit of an "inconvenient truth" about these moonbats (hat tip to The Hill):

Anti-war protesters were allowed to spray paint on part of thewest front steps of the United States Capitol building after police were ordered to break their security line by their leadership, two sources told The Hill. According to the sources, police officers were livid when theywere told to fall back by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Chief Phillip Morse and Deputy Chief Daniel Nichols. "They were the commanders on the scene," one source said, who requested anonymity. "It was disgusting."

After police ceded the stairs, located on the lower west front of the Capitol, the building was locked down, the source added.

A second source who witnessed the incident said that the police had the crowd stopped at Third Street, but were told to bring the police line in front of the Capitol.

Approximately 300 protesters were allowed to take the steps and began to spray paint "anarchist symbols" and phrase such as "Our capitol building" and "you can’t stop us" around the area, the source said.

Didn't see that vandalism bit in the Old Gray Hag fishwrap, did you? Nope...no liberal media bias!

Florida freezing, must be global "warming"

Temperatures dipped to near or just below freezing Monday morning around Jacksonville, with even colder temperatures predicted for Tuesday morning.

Monday night could be the coldest night of the year, with temperatures dropping rapidly after the sun goes down. A hard freeze -- temperatures expected to fall below 26 degrees for at least five hours -- is expected for all of northeast Florida.

"Tomorrow morning's temperatures will have a bite to them," Channel 4 meteorologist Richard Nunn said on the morning show, calling for a low of 25 for Jacksonville Tuesday morning -- and low 20s inland.

Nunn said temperatures are expected to remain below freezing from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. for everyone except residents along the coast and immediately along the river.

Freezing temperatures are expected to dip as far south as Broward County (that's Ft. Lauderdale, i.e. SOUTH FL - Ed.).

Forecasters encouraged residents to cover up exposed pipes, protect tender plants and bring in or provide for pets.

Although Monday's high temperature is forecast to reach 48, brisk winds will make it feel near freezing all day.

Meteorologists attributed the cold snap to a low-pressure system that moved across the Gulf on Saturday.

Oddly enough, meterologists blame this coldest night in four years not on global "warming" (or, as eco-nuts like to call it this time of year, "climate change"), but on...a naturally occurring weather pattern! Say it ain't so!

Right about now, I imagine that those citrus farmers in central FL would like a dose of that global "warming" to save their crops from the hard freeze.

Kennedrunk's economic illiteracy

From Neal Boortz:

The Democrats class warfare minimum wage increased is now being debated in the Senate .. and Ted Kennedy is about to have a stroke. Did you hear this pathetic man screaming at the Republicans? "What is it about it (the minimum wage) that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"

Well ... of course .. most of you will recognize this as cheap demagoguery. There are two faulty premises to Kennedy's question:

1. The working wage has some meaningful connection to "working" men and women.

2. Republicans are offended by working men and women.

Both premises are false.

Let's deal with this "working men and women" line first. This rhetorical nonsense is now a basic part of the left wing class warfare arsenal. The goal here is to foster the idea that the more money you make the less you work. The reality is that there we have two resources we can use to make money, physical labor and mental labor. Most of us use a combination of the two. The ugly little fact is that, generally speaking, and professional athletes aside, the more of your mind you use the more money you will make, and the more of your muscle you use the less money you'll make.

Here's another fact. The more money you make, the more likely it is that you will vote Republican. The less money you make, the more likely you will vote Democrat. Bring this all together and you'll soon figure out that the more you use physical labor to earn money, the more likely it is you will vote Democrat.

Knowing that almost all Americans value the concept of hard work, the Democrats have worked to promote the concept that the only real work that physical labor. Working with your mind -- managing investments, for instance -- just isn't work. Therefore the only real working people out there are those who work with their hands instead of their brains .... or those more likely to vote Democrat. Once you've made this absurd concept a reality you have created a wonderful class warfare weapon. If you're smarter than the average bear, and if you realize that it is not the role of government to set wages, you then become an enemy of "working men and women."

This, then, enables Ted Kennedy's demagoguery. He first asks what it is about the minimum wage that, as he says, drives Republicans so crazy. Simple. First -- there are still a few Republicans out there who believe that in a free market economy it is not the role of government to set wages. If the government can set a minimum wage, what is to stop the government from setting a maximum wage? If the government can set a minimum wage, then why can't the government set a minimum wage based on family size? Why can't the Imperial Federal Government of the United States just pass a law saying that the minimum wage goes up by $2.00 per hour for every child born to the worker? Once you allow the government to have a say in establishing the value of labor ... the sky is the limit. Where does it stop?

Secondly ... Republicans realize that less than 20% of the people in this country who earn the minimum wage live in families that are anywhere near or below the poverty level. Over six out of ten people who begin work at the minimum wage have received their first raise within the first year. Only 15% of minimum wage workers are still receiving the minimum wage after three years on their job. What percentage of the full time work force is earning just the minimum wage? Around 1 percent.

So .. to answer Kennedy's screaming questions: The minimum wage drives (some) Republicans crazy because there is absolutely nothing in our Constitution that allows the government to set wages, and the minimum wage is used by Democrats as nothing more than a tool of class warfare. Around one percent of full-time workers earn the minimum wage, and most of them are part of families that are well above the poverty line. It just isn't an issue. Knowing Republicans are also upset because they know that the Democrats push for the minimum wage increases are just another way of telling unions "thanks for your support."

And to answer Kennedy's second question, there is nothing about "working men and women" that Republicans find offensive. What they do find offensive is the Democrat use of the phrase "working people" as a tool of class warfare through their attempts to convince lower income Americans that those who make more than they do aren't really working for the money they earn.

Considering that Ted Kennedrunk was born with a silver brandy sniffer in his mouth, one wonders if through his fermented stupor, he sees the irony of bashing those he does not consider to be "working people"?

By the way, for those of you who haven't been here long, please click here to read why Democrats really want to raise minimum wage. Hint: unions are clamoring for it, despite the fact that union workers don't make anything NEAR minimum wage.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Joke of the day

Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Cokie Roberts, and a tough old U.S. Marine Sergeant were all captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists told them that he would grant them each one last request before they were beheaded.

Dan Rather said, "Well, I'm a Texan; so I'd like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili." The leader nodded to an underling who left and returned with the chili. Rather ate it all and said, "Now I can die content."

Peter Jennings said, "I am Canadian, so I'd like to hear the song "O Canada" one last time." The leader nodded to a terrorist who had studied the Western world and knew the music. He returned with some rag-tag Musicians and played the anthem. Jennings sighed and declared he could now die peacefully.

Cokie Roberts said, "I'm a reporter to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job till the end."

The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder and Roberts dictated some comments. She then said, "Now I can die happy."

The leader turned and said, "And now, Mr. U.S. Marine, what is your final wish?"

"Kick me in the ass," said the Marine.

"What?" asked the leader? "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass," insisted the Marine. So the leader shoved him into the open, and kicked him in the ass.

The Marine went sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from inside his fatigues, and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he leapt to his knapsack, pulled out his M4 carbine and sprayed the Iraqis with gunfire. In a flash, all the Iraqis were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Marine was untying Rather, Jennings, and Roberts, they asked him, "Why didn't you just shoot them in the beginning? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass first?"

"What??" replied the Marine, "And have you three a**holes report that I was the aggressor?"

Friday, January 26, 2007

"Cognitive dissonance on General Petraeus's nomination"

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted unanimously to approve General Petraeus's nomination to be commander of the forces in Iraq. He's expected to be easily approved by the rest of the Senate.

Isn't this a bit of cognitive dissonance? The Democrats on this committee and in the Senate condemn the plan that Petraeus put together. They're willing to vote (in a nonbinding way, of course) to voice their disapproval of this plan. But they're approving the guy who devised the plan and is going to head on over there to put it in action. And they wish him Godspeed as they do so. If they're so against this plan, why approve the guy who developed it and wants to implement it?

Meanwhile, the Democrats (and some Republicans) are having some trouble trying to distinguish how their nonbinding resolution doesn't interfere with their support for the troops. Senator Schumer went on NBC and was asked about this by David Gregory.

Gregory: But how can the public really buy [that] the Democrats support the troops but don't support the mission? How can you do both?

Schumer: Well, that's the difficulty. A resolution that says we're against this escalation, that's easy. The next step will be how do you put further pressure on the administration against the escalation but still supporting the troops who are there? And that's what we're figuring out right now.

In other words, it's easy to pass a meaningless resolution. Figuring out how they support the troops - that is for later.

We want Iraq to end like Korea?

"As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be-President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. 'When comes the end?' ... And as soon as he became president, he brought the Korean War to an end." This was part of freshman Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's much ballyhooed stentorian Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union address.

One wonders if the untold millions of North Koreans who've starved, bled and died since then would similarly applaud Eisenhower's courage and wisdom. For more than half a century, North Korea has been a prison-camp society beyond the imagining of George Orwell, where public executions for stealing food are familiar events. The man-made famine of the 1990s alone claimed the lives of up to 1 million people (hard data from Stalinist regimes are difficult to come by).

One also wonders: When are our troops going to come home? Technically, the Korean War isn't really over. We're merely enjoying a cease-fire - much like the one we had with Iraq in the 1990s.

While Webb favors a "formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq," our forces in South Korea have been there for nearly six decades. Something tells me the antiwar base of the Democratic Party doesn't have that sort of timetable in mind for Iraq.

So, except for the fact that the Korean War didn't end, our troops are still there, and the outcome has been the source of humanitarian and national security nightmares, Webb's salute to Eisenhower's statesmanship really strikes home.

Maybe Webb should just stick to writing kiddie porn and leave the governing (or, at the very least, the analogies) to the grown-ups, hmmm?

"Students at Texas College 'Celebrate' Martin Luther King Jr. Day by Throwing Stereotype Party"

Last week, while the nation paused to remember the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a group of students at a Texas college outside Fort Worth marked the day by throwing a party that featured black stereotype costumes — including a student dressed as Aunt Jemima — a main course of fried chicken and cases of malt liquor.

The insensitivity didn't end there. The students then brazenly posted their party photos on the popular Web site Facebook.com for all the world to see.

School administrators at Tarleton State University in Stephenville told FOXNews.com they are investigating an off-campus Martin Luther King Jr. Day student party held on Jan. 15 that the school's president called "reprehensible."

"I am personally insulted by these photographs and am disappointed that Tarleton students have demonstrated such insensitivity," university President Dennis P. McCabe wrote in a letter to students and faculty posted on the school's Web site Wednesday.

"I regret that any of our students have been hurt by the display of these photographs. The students involved have removed them and have expressed regret over offending their fellow students."

"I feel like there is no excuse for this type of ignorance," Donald Ray Elder, president of the school's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told the Associated Press.

Photographs posted on students' personal Facebook pages showed party attendees donning Afro-style wigs, fake gold jewelry, 40-ounce bottles of alcohol in brown paper bags and mock silver teeth. The photos have now made their way around the Web via TheSmokingGun.com.

In one picture, a student dressed as the character Aunt Jemima holds a bottle of maple syrup in one hand and a bottle in a brown paper bag that appeared to contain malt liquor.

I agree with Mr. Elder. There is no excuse for this type of ignorant behavior, and these kids should know better than to (a) be that stupid and (b) post this shizit to a web site. This is reprehensible and disgusting.

However...:

Wanda Mercer, the school's vice president of student life, said an investigation into the party is ongoing.

"We need to find out more about the event, and determine if there were policy violations. Then we'll go from there," Mercer told FOXNews.com.

The university's code of student conduct dictates that students can be punished for their behavior at an off-campus party, depending on the behavior.

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but I feel the need to state this: the university should butt out.

Look, the First Amendment gives us a right to free association and free speech. I know, the right to free speech does not mean freedom of consequences of said speech. For example, go call your boss and #sshole and see if there are any consequences.

However, colleges and universities like to fancy themselves as bastions of free thoughts and exchanges of such thoughts. As such, the university should step off and let the chips fall where they may. It looks to me like the chips are falling exactly where they should: the kids are getting roundly criticized and being publicly humiliated, and rightly so. Trust me, their "free speech" is being met by consequences! Seriously, I can't fathom what went through their peabrains when they came up with this idea.

This is political correctness in the form of a witch hunt. If you disagree, try to picture this:

Let's say that the black student organization decided to have a party where they were going to make fun of their perception of "Southerners", complete with overalls, moonshine jugs, fake buck teeth, confederate flags, plaid shirts and overalls, straw hats, blaring bluegrass music, and faux drawls. Do you think that the university or the MSM would have given a wet fart on a dry January Monday if any Southern white guys were offended by the stereotypes? In this scenario, I would have been equally mortified as I am with the stupid white guys doing the MLK party, but I would have also equally defended their right to have such a party without fear of university-administered punishment.

"Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq"

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

WTF? "Avoid escalating tensions with Iran"? Pardon my French here, but what kind of pansy-ass shizit is that? Yeah, let's not piss off a country that (a) wants to nuke us and (b) is killing our soldiers on the battlefield! No damned wonder Americans think we're losing the war in Iraq!

Continuing:

Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country's nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.

"There were no costs for the Iranians," said one senior administration official. "They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back."

With stupid-ass p#ssy policies like THAT, it's obvious that politicians, not soldiers, are bungling the war! Need further proof of that? Here it is:

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war....Advocates of the new policy -- some of whom are in the NSC, the vice president's office, the Pentagon and the State Department -- said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran's growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. "The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong," one official said.

If our gutless and shameless politicians really "support the troops", how about stop playing footsies with maniacal dictators who are trying to get our brave ones killed and let the soldiers do their damned jobs?

Non-political post of the day: caffeinated donuts?

That cup of coffee just not getting it done anymore? How about a Buzz Donut or a Buzzed Bagel? That's what Doctor Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has come up with. Bohannon says he's developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee.

While the product is not on the market yet, Bohannon has approached some heavyweight (no pun intended? - Ed.) companies, including Krispy Kreme, Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks about carrying it.

Yessirree, God(insert deity du jour here) knows that it's not enough for doughnuts to be riddled with fat and sugar! No way, dude, they need a couple of cups of coffee's worth of caffeine in there, too!

Carter: "Too many Jews" on Holocaust Council

Just when you think that Jimmy "the Dhimmi" Carter's anti-Semitism knew no bounds, he exceeds those bounds even further. From the Israel Insider:

The more we learn about Jimmy Carter's one-sided and biased views towards Israel and her supporters in this country, the more reason we have to be deeply troubled by what he represents and the dangerous mischief he continues to foment.

There is not enough space to repeat the detailed and well documented critiques of his best selling book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. They are, however, aptly summarized by Dr. Kenneth Stein, one of the many former aides and colleagues publicly to have disassociated themselves from the former president, who charged that: "[the book] is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments."

One of the book's most egregious - and now infamous passages -- is found at page 213, where Carter advises "the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups" to make clear that "suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism" will end once when Israel accepts the ultimate goals of the "Roadmap." Thus the former president sanctions -- indeed encourages -- continued suicide bombings until Israel meets Arab demands. In fact, what seems to trouble him most about such Arab acts is not that they kill innocent Israeli civilians, but that they may damage sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

Despite the in depth criticism of his thesis, Carter has dug in, stubbornly insisting that his book is both "accurate and needed," blaming the firestorm he has triggered on Jewish American organizations and while he accuses the pro-Israel community of trying to stifle him or any debate on Middle East policy.

And, let's not ignore his interview on the Al Jazeera network during which he astonishingly proclaimed that Palestinian missile attacks against Israeli citizens do not, to his way of thinking, constitute acts of terror. Even his apparent condemnation of the killing of children and bombing buses is problematic, as it is couched in terms of damaging sympathy for the Palestinian cause. This approach is reminiscent of that employed by Arafat who, to the extent he ever was in any way critical of acts of terror, complained only because he thought it was tactically disadvantageous.

Not surprisingly and very tellingly, Carter's frontal attacks have been warmly embraced by a nasty cast of scoundrels, including white supremacists groups and websites such as Stormfront and Aryan Nations as well as David Duke and the notorious Holocaust denying Institute of Historical Review.

It is with good reason that Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi, John Conyers and Howard Dean have publicly distanced themselves from Mr. Carter, a lead which hopefully others will follow. No Democratic leader or official has come to Carter's defense, and partisan attempts to use his comments to smear all Democrats as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic should not be tolerated.

The ongoing controversy, including the Carter Center's acceptance of millions of dollars from anti-Israel Arab sources, including the Saudi royal family, and the Bin Laden family prompted me last month to reveal to the JTA a disturbing 1987 encounter I had with Mr. Carter, while I was the Director of the Office of Special Investigations in the Justice Department, as he took up the cause of the family of an admitted Nazi SS concentration camp who had been stripped of citizenship by a federal court and removed from the country. (Read about it here.)

If one didn't know better, you'd think that we were not talking about a former president, but rather Pat Buchanan. After all, it was Mr. Buchanan, was it not, who over the years: denigrated Israel by calling it, among other things, an albatross around this country's neck, as he blamed her for the wars in Iraq; demeaned the pro-Israel lobby for having turned Capitol Hill into what he calls "Israeli occupied territory"; and came to the aid of Nazi criminals being pursued by our government, even while serving as communications director in the Reagan White House.

As troubling as all of this is, there is more. I have received correspondence which ineluctably leads to the comparison of Jimmy Carter to the darkest side of Richard Nixon.

In response to my earlier Op Ed, on December 27 of last year I received an email from Professor Monroe Freedman, a distinguished member of the faculty of Hofstra Law School in New York. He had been the first executive director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which had been created during the Carter administration. Working closely with Elie Wiesel, Freedman put forward to the White House a list of Council members. The recommendations came back disapproved, and Freedman remembers well the reason: "In the top corner, in Carter's handwriting and with his initials was the notation: 'Too many Jews'."

It certainly looks like Mr. Carter took a page right out of the playbook of the disgraced Nixon, who, in a most paranoid and bigoted of moments, instructed an aide to count the Jews in the Labor Department where he believed his economic policies were being obstructed.

To all those who doubt that Jews are an extraordinary people or that Israel is an extraordinary nation, I ask: who else could bring together and find common cause between the likes of Richard Nixon, Pat Buchanan David Duke and Jimmy Carter? Enough said.

In related news, Jimmah also complains that maternity wards have "too many babies being born", high school proms have "too many teenage kids dancing", zoos have "too many animals", schools have "too much learning going on", doctors' offices have "too many sick people", and Code Pink rallies have "too many moonbats"! OK, that's a bit of a stretch...he'd never think there's a such thing as too many moonbats!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Babs Boxer's enviro-hypocrisy

For the benefit of my newer readers, please allow me to introduce you to an expression that's used frequently around here when describing liberal life: "Good enough for thee, but not for me!" Simply put, that's when liberals wish to condemn the rest of us to live by standards or rules that they have no desire to subject themselves to living.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, the new chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, talks the talk when it comes to demanding higher gas mileage standards for vehicles in the U.S. – but does she walk the walk?

Back in 1990 when she was in the House, the California Democrat admitted during a House hearing that her husband was leasing a Porsche, an import whose city mileage ratings ranged from 13 to 18 miles per gallon.

Boxer told Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., that she did not know the Porsche’s mileage rating.

Said Dingell: "Why don’t you buy a Geo?”

But there was no Geo in sight when Boxer held a one-woman rally last year at an Exxon station on Capitol Hill and attacked the Bush administration’s relationship with big oil.

After the rally, the Washington Post reported, Boxer hopped into a gas-guzzling Chrysler LHS (18 mpg) "even though her Senate office was only a block away."

I don't think there's much more I could possibly add to this, is there?

Kerry drops out

Jean-Francois Heinz-Kerry (who is rumored to have served in Vietnam) has decided that he's not up to the challenge of running for president again. From MSNBC:

John Kerry, the losing 2004 presidential candidate, on Wednesday said he would not seek the Democratic nomination in 2008 but would instead remain in the Senate to fight George W. Bush's "misguided" war in Iraq. (That would be the war that Heinz-Kerry voted for, n'est-ce pas? - Ed.)

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Mr Kerry, 64, who lost the White House by a narrow margin, admitted he had made a mistake in voting for the 2002 congressional resolution authorising the invasion of Iraq.

Nothing like a little editorializing in a "news story", right? It's funny how the left is with their fuzzy math. When Gore (Democrat) won the popular vote in 2000 by 500,000 votes, that was reported by the MSM in the context of a "whopping" popular vote margin. Yet when Bush (Republican) bested Kerry in 2004 by about 3.5 million popular votes (and became the first president to garner a majority since his father did it in 1988), the MSM decided to "come around" to the electoral vote thingy. Thus, their "lost the White House by a narrow margin" editorializing. But why quibble over semantics (and bias), right? Continuing:

During the 2004 campaign, Mr Bush's campaign team painted the senator from Massachusetts as a "flip flopper", most notoriously when he said: "I actually did vote for the $87bn [funding for the Iraq war] before I voted against it."

On Wednesday Mr Kerry struck a clearer note when he said he wanted to spend the remaining two years of Mr Bush's presidency making up for the fact that he had voted the wrong way in 2002. He would use his Senate perch to press for a change of direction in Iraq and after that would seek re-election to the Senate.

Aside from calling the soldiers "stupid", few things are as disheartening to soldiers as hearing their leaders badmouth and undermine their mission. However, Kerry's got a track record of that, doesn't he?

Besides, don't sweat that re-election in Mass., Jean-Francois. If your state's citizens continue re-electing a pickled murderer to the Senate, as well as an escort service "entrepreneur" to the House, as well as having continued to re-elect a Foley-like underage page poker in Studds back in the 1980's...well, you get the idea. As a Mass. liberal, you're safer than a French soldier's enemy on the battlefield!

Now we get to the heart of why Kerry won't run again:

Mr Kerry's decision leaves a field of nine Democrats running or likely to announce their names soon, including Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois...."Kerry's departure from the race is really a signal of how strong the field is already," said Vic Fazio, a former Democratic congressman. "But that does not mean we won't see other candidates, such as Al Gore [former vice-president], entering the race at a later stage."

Mr Gore, whose film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, was nominated for two Oscar categories on Monday in Los Angeles, has not completely ruled out entering the 2008 race.

Some Democratic consultants have speculated that the losing 2000 presidential candidate might declare his intention to run in 2008 after having won an Oscar in March. But the chances, they say, are still slim (unlike Gore himself - Ed.).

Boy, what I wouldn't give for a moonbat like Gore to win the nomination! Everything he did in that 2000 election, from bribing Wisconsin homeless with cigarettes to getting ambulance chasers to disenfranchise overseas military votes in Florida (all while piously demanding to "count every vote") would be fair game to show how ruthless that sonofab#tch can be.

Anywho, au revior, Monsieur Kerry. I doubt seriously you'll be missed much during the campaign.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

La. guv mad at Bush...what else is new?

Gov. Kathleen Blanco angrily criticized President Bush on Wednesday for not mentioning 2005's destructive hurricanes in his State of the Union speech, and said Louisiana is being shortchanged in federal recovery funding for political reasons.

"I guess the pains of the hurricane are yesterday's news in Washington," Blanco said.

Gov. Blanco complaining about the response to Hurricane Katrina is like Bill Clinton complaining about interns: is that something to purposely draw attention to?

I mean, seriously?? Kathleen Freakin' Blanco's ham-handed and incompetent way of handling Katrina is something she wants scrutinized again? Hell, the people of Louisiana know who to blame. I know, I know, she thinks the MSM will run interference for her like they've done so often, but still, the new media isn't going to take this one lying down. People were starting to forget about her role in friggin' the evacuation and rescue and recovery efforts, and then she had to open her cakehole and remind us all again that she's a moron?

If Blanco were genuinely concerned about money after the hurricane, she likely wouldn't have worried about remodeling her staffers' offices with "flat screen televisions, Swedish granite countertops, walnut paneling and frosted laminated glass"...while hinting at budget cuts and state worker layoffs. Lemme guess...that, too, was Bush's fault!

Photoshop of the day

PETA on trial for cruelty to animals

It couldn't happen to a better bunch of hypocritical moonbats. From Raleigh:

All around this struggling farm town, chicken houses stand in the fields as a testament to the way many here earn their living -- raising, slaughtering and processing chickens.It is an unlikely locale for an unlikely criminal case. Today, two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a radical animal-rights group that opposes meat-eating, are on trial for the strangest of charges: killing animals.

PETA is based in Norfolk, Va., but its work has international scope. The group, which raises more than $25 million a year from 1.6 million supporters, opposes any human use of animals, whether for food, fashion or research. In the more than two decades since its founding, it has become a major threat to medical researchers, meatpackers, fur sellers and others.

Now, two of its employees stand accused of tossing garbage bags full of euthanized cats and dogs into a Dumpster behind a Piggly Wiggly in Hertford County, 130 miles northeast of Raleigh.

Continuing:

It is a strange turn of events for PETA. The group's supporters have often been prosecuted for their radical efforts to protect animals -- breaking into fashion shows to throw blood on fur-wearing models, liberating lab animals, showing gory videos outside the circus -- but PETA has never been accused of hurting animals.

Those who oppose PETA are seizing on the trial. The spectacle also has drawn a gaggle of lawyers, PETA staffers, reporters and curious onlookers to this rural county seat, where the small brick courthouse resembles an aging elementary school....Now, jurors will decide whether Hinkle and Cook were, as PETA argues, providing humane deaths to animals that would otherwise have been painfully killed in gas chambers -- or whether, as several local officials say, they were taking animals on the promise of finding them homes and secretly killing them.

A PETA spokeswoman, Kathy Guillermo, said PETA never wanted to get into the business of euthanizing animals. But she said the group couldn't ignore the horrible conditions in animal shelters around Norfolk and in northeastern North Carolina. The group now euthanizes thousands of animals a year.

"Euthanasia is a better alternative to sitting in a stinking pound," Guillermo said.

PETA opponents are drawing attention to this little-known facet of the group's work.

On Monday morning, the Washington D.C.-based Center for Consumer Freedom, an anti-PETA group funded by restaurants and meat producers, drove a mobile billboard truck reading "PETA: As Warm and Cuddly as You Thought?" past the courthouse.

David Martosko, research director for the group, described the case as a gift in his fight to discredit PETA. He plans to monitor the entire trial.

"Most people would not believe, if you told them two years ago, that PETA kills animals. They'd say, 'What? They're the bunny huggers,' " Martosko said.

Cut PETA a little slack, will ya? I mean, they may have KILLED the animals, but it's not like they ATE them afterwards! I mean, EATING animals is cruel, but killing them without finding them a home and lying in order to quench their thirst for blood is copacetic.

Deranged Iranian leader Ahmanutjob may be on thin ice in terms of holding onto power in Iran. Here's guessing that regardless of how badly Iranians may dislike Israel or the U.S., they don't want their country reduced to a parking lot in the Middle East. That would be the end result, too, if Ahmanutjob nukes one of those countries as he's vowed to do.

CNN is falling all over itself to debunk a story that could be damaging to one of its idols. Media darling, empty suit, and presidential wannabe Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has fought to refute a rumor that he attended a "radical Muslim school known as a 'madrassa'" when he was a child. The rumor was dredged up by...associates of fellow Democrat (and fellow presidential wannabe) Hillary Clinton! She's not gonna let this guy siphon her MSM love away and deprive her of her coronation!

Monday, January 22, 2007

Leaving sh#t on someone's property is a constitutional right?

Do we have a constitutional right to leave dog poop at someone's office?

That could be the main question arising in the infamous dog-poop-under-the-door case from last year's 4th Congressional District election. In addition, the Greeley attorney for the defense said Tuesday he may even call Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., and Weld District Attorney Ken Buck as witnesses in the case.

Kathleen Ensz, 63, a former teacher at the University of Northern Colorado, was arrested last summer after she wrapped one of Musgrave's campaign brochures around some dog excrement and stuffed the package under the door at the Congresswoman's office in west Greeley. Unfortunately for Ensz, police were able to trace a partial address on the mailer and she was later arrested for "use of a noxious substance." It's a class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by a fine, jail or both.

If spray-painting someone's property with graffiti is an act of vandalism, why would leaving a dog turd be any different? Anywho, I will continue with the "beverage warning":: If you are drinking something right now, please put it down before reading. You have been warned.

Court records Tuesday stated Ensz had become angry over the repeated mailings from Musgrave, "paid for by taxpayers." Her attorneys stated in a motion that Ensz went into her backyard, picked out what police described as a "very nice piece of feces," and returned the mailing.

A "very nice piece of feces"? I had no idea that dog shizit was graded on a scale! It must go something like this:

Bangert wrote a motion Tuesday, stating "Ms. Ensz's action in returning an unwanted mailing from Congresswoman Musgrave ... with a piece of feces, was expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment."

Bangert also contended that Ensz couldn't receive a fair trial in Greeley because of Musgrave's "prominence in the community and government." (One can assume she is "prominent" because unlike Ensz, Musgrave never deposited pooch guano on a political opponent's doorstep! In most places, that's a pretty low threshold for "prominence in the community and government", but apparently, not in Colorado! - Ed.) The Denver attorney also contested the charge, "use of a noxious substance," as vague and unintelligible for the average person.

"Homeless village" in Daytona Beach

A controversial proposal in Daytona Beach, Fla., would create a special village to house hundreds of the county's homeless people, Local 6 News has learned.

Volusia County Council members are expected to consider a plan to build the Tiger Bay Village and treatment facility for the area's 2,500 homeless community.

"Although it is only in its exploratory stages, developers for the Tiger Bay Village say it is invaluable," Local 6's Tarik Minor said.

Developer Michael Arth is proposing to build a 5,600-bed community on a 125-acre lot of rural land.

The village will provide shelter, psychiatric help and the support of neighbors.

"This is for the people who can't work and can't integrate themselves into society," Arth said. "The answer is not to build a Hooverville of tents and trailers but to make these buildings attractive enough so that if you or I would went there, we would say, 'Wow, I'd live there.'"

Critics worry that the Tiger Bay Village will only promote homelessness and that the population will relocate to rural areas.

Arth said homeless people are costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year.

He said building a village is better than putting Band-Aids on the problem.

"I would go to the village to get out of the weather and the cold," homeless man Daniel Hector said.

Politically incorrect point to ponder: if the homeless live in this apartment complex, doesn't that by definition give them a "home" and thus render them no longer "homeless"? :-D

Seriously, though, I actually support this move, for a variety of reasons. For one, many homeless people have mental disorders of some type, and if this proposed facility provides mental health services, that would be a helluva lot better than the mental health services they get on the streets...none. Furthermore, the facility would protect the homeless from the elements of bitter cold and scorching heat.

Also, the one aspect of homelessness many people seem to miss is the children. What if a kid has parents who wind up getting them all homeless? The kids have done nothing wrong, and in some cases, neither did the parents. It would be nice for them all to have a roof over their heads while trying to get the help they need to re-establish themselves.

Finally, I am assuming that this will not be funded by federal dollars, nor should it be. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution says that everything that's not listed in the Constitution is not a federal role and that the states and locales can manage in a manner they see fit. If Daytona is going to use local funds and their citizens consent (either directly or indirectly, in the form of re-electing their representatives), I have no beef with it.

I don't know that I buy this concern that "Tiger Bay Village will only promote homelessness", because who in their right mind would think "You know what? Now that I know there's a homeless village down the road, I think I'll give up my house and my job to go live there!"?

There are admittedly a lot of details I do not know: income restrictions, financing, etc. However, from what little I've read of this, I don't know that I have a problem with this at all. Your thoughts are welcome.

"Clinton Signed 'Iraq Liberation Act' Into Law 1998"

Maybe you supported military action in Iraq in 2003, or maybe you didn't. Maybe you think the war has been poorly prosecuted, regardless of whether or not you initially supported (or continue to support) the war. Fair enough. Reasonable people can disagree on any of that.

However, one thing that reasonable people cannot disagree on is this: the idea to invade Iraq did not originate with George W. Bush. Amy Proctor has more:

Bottom Line Up Front: The war in Iraq is not “Bush’s war”, it is America’s war and it has been since the early 1990’s. In 1998, then President Bill Clinton on the eve of presidential impeachment hearings signed into law The Iraq Liberation Act which committed U.S. money to supporting the overthrow of a dangerous Saddam Hussein and laid out U.S. policy as supporting a free Iraq.

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENTTHE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press SecretaryFor Immediate ReleaseOctober 31, 1998STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Today I am signing into law H.R. 4655, the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998." This Act makes clear that it is the sense of the Congress that the United States should support those elements of the Iraqi opposition that advocate a very different future for Iraq than the bitter reality of internal repression and external aggression that the current regime in Baghdad now offers.

Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.

The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.

My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.

In the meantime, while the United States continues to look to the Security Council's efforts to keep the current regime's behavior in check, we look forward to new leadership in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. The United States is providing support to opposition groups from all sectors of the Iraqi community that could lead to a popularly supported government.

On October 21, 1998, I signed into law the Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, which made $8 million available for assistance to the Iraqi democratic opposition. This assistance is intended to help the democratic opposition unify, work together more effectively, and articulate the aspirations of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic, participatory political system that will include all of Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups. As required by the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for FY 1998 (Public Law 105-174), the Department of State submitted a report to the Congress on plans to establish a program to support the democratic opposition. My Administration, as required by that statute, has also begun to implement a program to compile information regarding allegations of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by Iraq's current leaders as a step towards bringing to justice those directly responsible for such acts.

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 provides additional, discretionary authorities under which my Administration can act to further the objectives I outlined above. There are, of course, other important elements of U.S. policy. These include the maintenance of U.N. Security Council support efforts to eliminate Iraq's weapons and missile programs and economic sanctions that continue to deny the regime the means to reconstitute those threats to international peace and security. United States support for the Iraqi opposition will be carried out consistent with those policy objectives as well. Similarly, U.S. support must be attuned to what the opposition can effectively make use of as it develops over time. With those observations, I sign H.R. 4655 into law.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON

THE WHITE HOUSE,

October 31, 1998.

Well, whaddya know! It looks like this isn't "Bush's war" after all. Democratic opposition is simply a political concoction. This is America's war and has been for 15 years. The Bush administration promotes the identical agenda in Iraq from regime change to halting Saddam's WMD program to promoting democracy and freedom in the Middle East. Clinton even dismissed the excuse Democrats use today that sectarian strife in Iraq has been going on for too long and cannot be reconciled saying he "categorically reject[ed] arguments that this [freedom within Iraq] is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else." Sound familiar?...BRAVO! Do yourself a favor and read the entire transcript of Pres. Clinton’s explanation justifying strikes on Iraq by US and British forces. He gave a more coherent description than Pres. Bush has in the last 6 years. (Then again, Bush isn't exactly an excellent communicator, now is he? - Ed.)

Now the U.S. military strike against Iraq occurred on the eve of Clinton’s impeachment hearings resulting in their postponement. The four articles of impeachment charged Clinton with perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power in the Monica Lewinsky affair. The timing of military action in Iraq appeared to be a tactical maneuver by Pres. Clinton to avoid the humiliating proposition of becoming the first President in U.S. history to be impeached (which is what later happened), under such embarrassing circumstances. Republicans criticized the move for that reason, although most still supported the action against Iraq....At the time, Democrats reacted angrily to the criticism of Clinton's motives. For example, Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) said:

"(The GOP reaction is) as close to a betrayal of the interests of the United States as I've ever witnessed in the United States Congress. It's unforgivable and reprehensible."

Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD):

"This is a time for our country to be united, even though we're divided on other matters."

"Any delay would have given (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein time to reconstitute his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and undermine international support for our efforts."

Where are these Democrats today, and why are they opposing the Clinton law and initiatives that they so vehemently supported in 1998? In fairness to Bill Clinton, despite the timing (which very well may have come from ulterior motives), it was the right thing to do. His mission in Haiti was right, his mission in Bosnia was right, and his mission in Iraq was right.

Should Bill Clinton arrested on war crimes for civilian deaths suffered by the strikes in Iraq and Bosnia? If not, how can liberals so hypocritically demand that action for Bush? And how could the U.S. bomb "Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs" in 1998 if there were no WMD? And if there weren't WMD (which there were), doesn't Clinton share the same culpability that Democrats claim for Pres. Bush? Clinton was right no matter what his motive, President Bush is right, and if Democrats would stop pretending to be bi-partisan and actually be bi-partisan, America might work toward unity. As former Democratic Senator Tom Daschle said,

"This is a time for our country to be united, even though we're divided on other matters."

Amen.

Nice job, Ms. Proctor, of laying out the case against the hypocrisy that we see today, despite the fact that the MSM has covered up said hypocrisy like a cat turd in a litter box.

I suppose the Democrats' position on Iraq can be summed up thusly: If we need to attack Iraq based on intel that our country has and that the whole world (including the useless U.N.) thought was valid, then we should NOT do so. However, if we need to attack Iraq to divert attention from a Democratic president's troubles over perjury and diddling an intern his daughter's age, then we should DEFINITELY do so.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification on that, as well as the clarification on "unity", meaning that "unity" is to be displayed when a Dem occupies the Oral Oval Office, but not a Republican.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Gore chickens out of interview

Al Gore is traveling around the world telling us how we must fundamentally change our civilization due to the threat of global warming. Last week he was in Denmark to disseminate this message. But if we are to embark on the costliest political project ever, maybe we should make sure it rests on solid ground. It should be based on the best facts, not just the convenient ones. This was the background for the biggest Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, to set up an investigative interview with Mr. Gore. And for this, the paper thought it would be obvious to team up with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," who has provided one of the clearest counterpoints to Mr. Gore's tune.

The interview had been scheduled for months. The day before the interview Mr. Gore's agent thought Gore-meets-Lomborg would be great. Yet an hour later, he came back to tell us that Bjorn Lomborg should be excluded from the interview because he's been very critical of Mr. Gore's message about global warming and has questioned Mr. Gore's evenhandedness. According to the agent, Mr. Gore only wanted to have questions about his book and documentary, and only asked by a reporter. These conditions were immediately accepted by Jyllands-Posten. Yet an hour later we received an email from the agent saying that the interview was now cancelled. What happened?

One can only speculate. But if we are to follow Mr. Gore's suggestions of radically changing our way of life, the costs are not trivial. If we slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, the U.N. actually estimates that we will live in a warmer but immensely richer world. However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path down toward an environmentally obsessed society, it will have big consequences for the world, not least its poor. In the year 2100, Mr. Gore will have left the average person 30% poorer, and thus less able to handle many of the problems we will face, climate change or no climate change.

Clearly we need to ask hard questions. Is Mr. Gore's world a worthwhile sacrifice? But it seems that critical questions are out of the question. It would have been great to ask him why he only talks about a sea-level rise of 20 feet. In his movie he shows scary sequences of 20-feet flooding Florida, San Francisco, New York, Holland, Calcutta, Beijing and Shanghai. But were realistic levels not dramatic enough? The U.N. climate panel expects only a foot of sea-level rise over this century. Moreover, sea levels actually climbed that much over the past 150 years. Does Mr. Gore find it balanced to exaggerate the best scientific knowledge available by a factor of 20?

Mr. Gore says that global warming will increase malaria and highlights Nairobi as his key case. According to him, Nairobi was founded right where it was too cold for malaria to occur. However, with global warming advancing, he tells us that malaria is now appearing in the city. Yet this is quite contrary to the World Health Organization's finding. Today Nairobi is considered free of malaria, but in the 1920s and '30s, when temperatures were lower than today, malaria epidemics occurred regularly. Mr. Gore's is a convenient story, but isn't it against the facts?

He considers Antarctica the canary in the mine, but again doesn't tell the full story. He presents pictures from the 2% of Antarctica that is dramatically warming and ignores the 98% that has largely cooled over the past 35 years. The U.N. panel estimates that Antarctica will actually increase its snow mass this century. Similarly, Mr. Gore points to shrinking sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere, but don't mention that sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere is increasing. Shouldn't we hear those facts? Mr. Gore talks about how the higher temperatures of global warming kill people. He specifically mentions how the European heat wave of 2003 killed 35,000. But he entirely leaves out how global warming also means less cold and saves lives. Moreover, the avoided cold deaths far outweigh the number of heat deaths. For the U.K. it is estimated that 2,000 more will die from global warming. But at the same time 20,000 fewer will die of cold. Why does Mr. Gore tell only one side of the story?

Al Gore is on a mission. If he has his way, we could end up choosing a future, based on dubious claims, that could cost us, according to a U.N. estimate, $553 trillion over this century. Getting answers to hard questions is not an unreasonable expectation before we take his project seriously. It is crucial that we make the right decisions posed by the challenge of global warming. These are best achieved through open debate, and we invite him to take the time to answer our questions: We are ready to interview you any time, Mr. Gore--and anywhere.

Maybe Al Gore comes from the Cullen school of debate, where you prove your point with silence instead of science. However, if you're going to try and convince the world that your doomsday scenario is real and that your skeptics are adding to global "warming" with their hot air, it helps to confront said skeptics with facts.

Then again, if your critics are armed with facts that counter your Chicken Little talking points, I would assume that you would want fewer people being exposed to that kind of pesky annoying "truth" thingy.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

NH tax evader: "Income tax is illegal, so I won't pay"

A former militia man convicted of tax evasion prepared for a government siege Friday at his fortress-like home, but U.S. marshals gave no indication they were planning to confront him.

Ed Brown said he was ready for a swarm of federal agents to descend on his property to execute an arrest warrant issued after he failed to appear for the end of his trial. He and his wife contend that they did not have to pay income taxes, and his supporters say a conflict could be violent.

"If Mexico came up on my land and tried to take my land, would I not fight?" Brown said. "The United States is the same exact thing as Mexico in this state."

Brown, 63, and his wife, Elaine, 65, were convicted Thursday of plotting to conceal their income and avoid paying federal income tax. They argued the tax is illegitimate and they are not required to pay it.

This man is throwing away his life for a stupid reason, and that reason is that his knowledge of the law is woefully inadequate. A brief history of the income tax is here, but here is the condensed version:

There was no income tax in the early days of the republic. Congress tried to impose one, but the courts shot it down as unconstitutional. A constitutional amendment was passed that authorized Congress to impose an income tax in a manner it saw fit, and Congress has been (ab)using that power ever since.

Look, I firmly believe that the income tax is a horrible way for the government to collect revenue, and that the national sales tax (as described in the Fair Tax) is the best way to go. That's a different topic for a different day. However, the current income tax system, regardless of what you think of it, is entirely legal and legitimate. The sooner this NH nutbar recognizes that, the sooner he can get on with a normal life. Well, as normal as his life can be, anyway.

About Me

I am not conservative or Republican. I am a "neo-libertarian." It’s more logically consistent than conservatism and liberalism.
Liberals are not evil; however, their ideology has proven to be a demonstrable failure and incredibly harmful when administered on the body politic.
I have lived in the South all of my life. While I'd love to travel, I don't want to live anywhere else. Though I currently live near Jacksonville, FL, I call Memphis home (lived there most of my life). I'm a Florida State University Seminole, through and through.
All viewpoints are welcome on my blog. However, if I ban you or edit/delete your comments, it's because I found you to be offensive, repulsive, or otherwise useless. My world, my rules. Deal with it, or beat it.
Finally, I had a happy childhood, so my worldview has NOT been "warped" by a lousy upbringing. Quite the contrary: I have been blessed, and my outlook has been molded accordingly. I won't apologize for having grown up in a loving, middle-class family.